This article stems from a “copy” stamped key date 1932-D Washington Quarter. This abides by the Hobby Protection Act and isn’t to deceive anyone. As we know, counterfeiters don’t abide by the law!
The next example was sent to me by a friend. Highlighted obverse markers match the previous “copy.”
An example surfaced on eBay from a rather large seller. After a brief discussion with them showing this to be a counterfeit they removed the listing. The obverse shares a couple repeating marks, but we see additional ones to be used in the future. The reverse is a match to the example shared to be by a fellow collector.
Another internet venue provides us images of a 1932-S that shares this “common obverse.” Highlighted in green are repeating marks for this reverse.
It isn’t only key date coins that counterfeiters target! This 1936-S shares the same reverse as the aforementioned 1932s.
Keep in mint that shopping venues Temu and Etsy sell thousands of replicas, some die struck, further eroding the hobby market.
It is also important to learn die markers for the 1932-D and S key dates. Click here for that.
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The 1956 Franklin Half Dollar was struck with two different reverse designs, Type I and Type II, concerning the small eagle on the reverse. Type I features four distinct feathers to the left of the perch, while the Type II shows only three visible feathers. Both types were minted, with Type I used for both circulation strikes and proofs, and Type II primarily used on proofs.
The reason for this post is the value of Type I proofs. This design was exclusively for business strikes. That makes proofs with this design valuable. For instance, in mint state PR64, type I retails for $210 while Type II goes for $44.
As you can see, identifying Type I will bring huge value that only increases with if cameo or deep cameo. At gem PR65, Type I cameo retails for $225 and deep cameo, $975; compare to Type II, cameo PR65, $67, and Type II, deep cameo, $165.
Here’s how to tell, compliments PCGS CoinFacts:
You can count those feathers as die markers. But an easier way is to note how Type I has a poor strike, not showing the complete feathers:
That’s where to look.
The best way to find Type I is via proof sets, which typically go for $50:
You will need magnification on sets like the one above to see if the offering is Type I or II.
You can find Type I on eBay because the seller doesn’t know what he has:
If you use a photo app to expand the photo, you’ll see this is Type I:
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The 1932-D Quarter (436,800 minted) and 1932-S Quarter (408,000, lowest mintage in the series) are a coveted pair for collectors. The 1932 Philadelphia Quarter has a mintage of 5,404,000 with no mintmark, of course, on the reverse, making it a target for added mintmark fakes.
In this article, we provide die markers so that you can check to ensure that your quarter is authentic.
These key dates are avidly sought by collectors, with the D and S quarters especially rare in uncirculated condition. Compare values compiled by PCGS CoinFacts:
1932-D Die Markers
The most obvious die marker concerns the filled mint mark (“D”) with visible serifs and bloated appearance, even in uncirculated grade:
Here’s how the mintmark looks in more common circulated grades (note you can see still serifs).
You should also look for die cracks on the reverse, especially near the eagle’s left wing or the motto “PLURIBUS.” Many but not all display this.
Almost all examples in very fine through uncirculated should have well-defined devices. (If mushy, you probably have a base metal China counterfeit.) Because of the low mintage, a very small number of working dies were used to mint this rarity. Research suggests only two obverse dies and two reverse dies were used.
Despite the low mintage, there are no major recognized doubled die or repunched mint mark varieties for the 1932-D, unlike other years in the series. So if you see an distinct RPM, again, you may have a counterfeit.
Another marker is a crack running from the hairline across Washington’s head on the obverse.
1932-S Die Markers
You may encounter difficulty identifying die markers for the 1932-S Washington Quarter as they primarily involve die cracks and scratches on both sides, with a key reverse marker being a crack at the word “PLURIBUS.”
Another marker is a scratch or die crack above the ‘3’ in the date, helping to distinguish genuine coins from counterfeits.
Counterfeit 1932 D and S
Identifying fakes in both quarters, look for casting bubbles (1. below), undefined rim (2.), wrong date placement (3.) and overall mushy appearance (4.)
On 1932-D, you’ll see a sharper mintmark on fake and added mintmark examples. Compare the “D” of the counterfeit quarter (left) with the genuine (right).
China has flooded the market with die struck base and silver counterfeits. High-quality Chinese counterfeiting operations produce 500,000 silver coins (including 1932 D and S) per month. Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) reports that thousands of fake 1932-D and 1932-S quarters are circulating.
If you are not an expert grader and are buying or bidding on raw coins, you should bypass raw 1932-D and S Quarters and buy ones graded by major holdering companies.
If you like posts like this, please go to our counterfeit archive with reports from Jack Riley, Jack D. Young, John Lorenzo and Michael Bugeja. Also, please subscribe so you can get our weekly newsletter and be informed whenever there is a new article or column.
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You can find more information about errors and varieties as well as buying and bidding on coins in Coin News Updated: The Essential Guide to Online Bidding. Please consider purchasing the work for yourself or a friend, as it underwrites this hobbyist website. Thank you.
Clickbait social media sites have tricked new coin collectors into believing they can find ultra rarities in pocket change and bank rolls. What are the odds?
We’ll calculate those odds later. But here’s the list of what you in all likelihood will never find:
1974-D Aluminum Cent
1943-D Copper Cent
1944-S Steel Cent
1982-D Small Date 3.1 grams
1943-S Copper Cent
1944-D Steel Cent
1983/83-D Copper Cent
2000 Sacagawea Mule
1944 Steel Cent
1943 Copper Cent
1969-S DDO Cent
1971-D DDO Cent
Social media scammers also proclaim “no mintmark” coins are rarities. No mintmark means minted in Philadelphia; missing mintmark is the rarity. Again, later in the article, we will show you just how many of these rarities are believed minted:
1968 No S Proof Dime
1990 No S Lincoln Cent
1970 No S Roosevelt Proof Dime
1975 No S Roosevelt Proof Dime
1983 No S Roosevelt Proof Dime
1971 No S Jefferson Proof Nickel
1976 No S Eisenhower Proof Dollar
1982 No P Mintmark
But not to despair! There are hundreds of findable rarities in rolls and pocket change. They won’t make you rich, but will make you a coin collector–a true hobbyist–who knows how to spend time wisely. We’ll cover those later.
Clickbait Social Media
Scammers on Facebook and YouTube foster the belief you can get rich and retire with pocket change.
Here’s a sample YouTube video:
There are only 5 known 1943-S Copper Cents. People have been checking their change and bank rolls for 70 years. To calculate odds of your finding one, factor this: some 125 million Americans consider themselves coin collectors to some degree. Twenty percent of Millennials, or 14.5 million, have taken a keen interest in numismatics.
New collectors have purchased coin microscopes and visit TikTok, Google, YouTube, eBay, Facebook and other social media venues, believing they can strike it rich by checking their change at the grocery store or making several trips to the bank for rolls.
Now consider the past 50-70 years of Americans collecting coins and looking for ultra rarities like 1943 copper cents or 1944 steel ones. What do you think the odds are of your finding one of them?
Now factor the hundreds of thousands of fake ultra rarities exported to the US by China. These often find themselves in rolls and auctions. Etsy, an American company flooded with Chinese sellers, and Temu, a Chinese company, also have saturated the coin market place with replicas. See this article for examples.
AI Calculates Odds
In addition to being a numismatist, I am a distinguished professor (actual title) emeritus at an institution of science and technology. My research specialty is artificial intelligence. I fed data into several sites and databases to calculate the odds of your finding one of these treasures.
In the table below, you will see those top 12 rarest coins and their values along with the odds of your finding one in pocket change or bank rolls.
Brace yourself:
Social media is undermining the hobby along with Chinese counterfeiters who count on your not knowing die markers for rarities. If you don’t, you can spend thousands on replicas.
Some examples:
Just consider the 1943-S restrike copper cent offerings on Etsy:
eBay scammers buy these restrikes and then list them as ultra rarities. Here’s an example:
You also can find “missing mintmark” rarities in online auctions.
Missing Mintmarks
The Philadelphia Mint did not use a mint mark on coins until 1980, with the exception of the 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollar, 1942-45 35% silver Jefferson war nickels, and the 2017 Lincoln 225th anniversary cent.
Here’s another table about how many missing mint mark coins are believed to have been released into circulation.
Here are tactics of counterfeiters and scammers:
Altering Normal Coins: Forgers might take a regular dime and try to remove the mintmark.
Tooling: Look for signs of filing or polishing where the mintmark should be.
Fake “No-S” Proofs: A common tactic is to take a regular business strike (like a 1970-S) and try to remove the ‘S’ to pass it off as the rare proof version.
There are hundreds of varieties and error coins that hobbyists still can find in pocket change in bank rolls and that are holdered by PCGS, NGC and ANACS. For a comprehensive list, click here.
Coin collecting is in part about value and investment. The difference between now and past decades is where new hobbyists are getting misinformation. In the past, most numismatists embraced the hobby because of the history, art, culture and metallurgy of coins, medals and paper money.
That is why Proxiblog recommends these three articles for new hobbyists:
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The 1878-S Morgan has a mintage of 9,774,000 and is valuable in higher grades, but a small detail on an otherwise even silver melt coin is a coveted variety.
Let’s define “Nock,” an uncommon word, except for archers, whose definition is a notch at either end of a bow for holding the string.
So right off the word leads us to the quiver of arrows held by the eagle on the reverse.
Morgan 1878-S “Long Nock” coin refers an extended length of the arrow shaft (the “nock”) in the eagle’s talon. This variety is a result of a design variation used on the first set of dies delivered to the San Francisco Mint.
Let’s compare a regular 1878-S reverse with a “long nock” one with this photo from PCGS CoinFacts:
The “long nock” feature extends the tip of the central arrow.
This variety has several specific variations in the VAM directory (named after the directory compiled by Leroy Van Allen and A. George Mallis):
These varieties happened because of an urgent need to produce Morgan dollars at various mints in 1878. The first 10 pairs of dies for the San Francisco Mint had the “long nock” design. When the US Mint asked engraver George T. Morgan to revise the design, reducing the relatively high relief (shortening die life), the nock was shortened and the number of tail feathers on the eagle were reduced from eight to seven.
Value for this variety is high but few ever exceed almost uncirculated levels. The top pop at PCGS is AU53.
At Very Fine 20, the coin retails for $275 and increases by about $100 each Sheldon grade higher up until AU53.
Nevertheless, you will find 1878-S Morgans everywhere–even in slabbed coins–with the owner or holdering company missing the variety. (If you submit a coin without identifying and paying for a variety, that designation will not be on the label.)
Happy hunting!
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This video documents the various ways to identify fake Chinese holders and coins, including lack of logos on slab, pasted Gold Shield sticker, wrong fonts, wrong 1921 label, wrong reverse and so much more.
When people ask if their coin is cleaned, they may not know the various types of cleaning, which this article explains with illustrations.
Hobbyists sometimes clean coins using acetone or detergents, typically non-destructive. These destructive cleaning methods permanently alter the coin’s surface and dramatically reduce its collectible value.
Dipping: Using a chemical solution (often a dilute acid) to strip away toning or oxidation from the coin’s surface, leaving micro bubbles that are red flags.
Smoothing: Using a cloth, abrasive paste or other substance to rub the surface, leaving tiny scratches called “hairlines.”
Polishing: Using a device or tool to buff the surface of the coin so that it shines with a false luster, often blurring devices.
Whizzing: Using a high-speed rotating brush to create artificial luster, leaving unnatural proof-like sheen with telltale patterns of metal flow around the coin’s devices.
Scrubbing: A coin that contains evidence of an abrasive material like baking soda or a metal brush, often to remove verdigris or other contaminant.
Chemical Application: Soaking a coin in acidic household items like vinegar with salt or lemon juice that remove verdigris and ruin eye appeal.
Electrolysis: Using electrical current in a solution to strip away corrosion, a process often used on ancient coins or ones found by metal detecting.
All sample coins above would get a details/cleaned grade by a holdering company.
For those who want to clean coins via non-destructive methods, consider rinsing them in distilled water or soaking in acetone, mild soap or olive oil. To learn more about if and when to clean coins, see “When, If and How to Clean Coins.”
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Internet venues often give rather interesting finds. In this case, modern counterfeit Lafayette Dollars.
The Lafayette Dollar was the first U.S. commemorative silver dollar, and the first coin to feature an American citizen (Lafayette; made honorary citizen by Congress) and a U.S. President (Washington) together. Add to that its scarcity in mint condition due to low sales and melting.
So this coin is a target of counterfeiters.
The image below is from a semi-large eBay seller who has a number of legitimate coins listed; however, in the mix of these there lies a counterfeit Lafayette Dollar. If anyone wants to authenticate a Lafayette Dollar there are 5 known DuVall varieties and that can be sourced from VAMWorld; these examples do not attribute.
A comparable example below is sourced from a larger Facebook coin group. Presented as s questionable, the coin at a glance looks suspicious.
Comparing the two “coins” we can see a few repeating marks highlighted in green:
Depression in A
Small circular dot behind the eye
Depression on the top of the tail
Two sporadic field dots above the date
This third example below clearly stated “copy” and was derived from another online source known for selling counterfeit U.S. coins. Additional markers in red denote common similarities; yet these did not appear present on the eBay example. They are present on the piece shared in the large group.
Highlighted repeating marks in red:
Lines protruding from ETT
Spike from T
Apparently scratch from behind the shoulder
“Boot Spur”
If you spot a counterfeit coin on eBay, report it immediately using the “Report Item” link on the listing to eBay’s Trust & Safety team.
If you like posthttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D131V2QRs like this, you can read more articles on counterfeit coins by Jack D. Young, Jack Riley and Michael Bugeja at this URL. Also, please subscribe so you can be informed whenever there is a new article or column.
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You can find more information about errors and varieties as well as buying and bidding on coins in Coin News Updated: The Essential Guide to Online Bidding. Please consider purchasing the work for yourself or a friend, as it underwrites this hobbyist website. Thank you.
Fortunately, the 1889-CC Morgan dollar has only three known major die varieties (VAMs), each with specific die markers. This makes it easier than other dates with more markers when identifying counterfeits.
The most common practice is to add a CC to the common 1889 Philadelphia Morgan. That is why knowing the die markers for authentic coins is so important.
A mere 350,000 coins in 1889 were struck at the Carson City Mint, and hundreds of thousands of those were melted after 1918 due to the Pittman Act. This makes it a nifty target for criminals. Moreover, the common date 1889 Philadelphia is used for an added mintmark. Here is an example from NGC:
Right off the bat, veteran hobbyists know that the mintmark used in the above example is the wrong one for an 1889-CC dollar.
In this article we will explore die markers for the three aforementioned VAM varieties. The main difference is the position and appearance of the date and mintmark, which uses the larger elliptical “CC” mintmark in production between 1879 and 1893.
Let’s start there by showing the mintmark of an 1878-CC and 1889-CC Morgan:
Note the smaller, thicker non-elliptical mintmark of the 1878-CC. Difference is easily recognizable.
VAM-1 Normal Die
The date “1889” has a normal lateral position, and the mintmark on the reverse is also in a standard position relative to the other devices there. Example:
VAM-2: High 9, Doubled 1
The numeral “9” is set higher than the other numerals in the date, sometimes even with a doubled “1.”
The “CC” mintmark is typically placed further to the right than in other varieties.
VAM-3: Far Date
The entire date is farther to the right than normal and also may also slightly slanted.
The second “C” of the reverse mintmark is higher than the first “C,” as this Vamworld photo shows.
A couple of things before ending here. If you don’t know VAMs and die markers, do NOT purchase a raw 1889-CC Morgan. There are thousands of counterfeits circulating in online auctions. Knowing VAM die markers can be challenging; but once you master them, you’ll be able to inform others when they ask whether their coin is genuine or fake.
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As if the Chinese counterfeit coins in fake PCGS slabs isn’t bad enough, now there appears to be a fake Chinese PCGS website to verify them.
A friend alerted me to the following listing on the Bay:
Past eBay listed counterfeit in a counterfeit not-PCGS slab:
The listing included these interesting other images:
Images from the seller’s listing
The seller had ended the listing based on being told it is a counterfeit, and I started a review to try to determine what was going on here!
So, I started with the “PCGS” slab and some quick checks. Using my on-line barcode scanner I checked the front barcode:
Like many similar bad slabs, the barcode was gibberish and would not scan. Next, I went to the PCGS website to check the noted cert number:
Note from the genuine PCGS site for the cert # look-up
And another bad sign, that cert # “was not found”. So, my next step was to try to read the reverse label QR code. And just a note, many of the previous counterfeits we have documented similar to this one had a QR code that read the cert # correctly but noted the genuine PCGS CN site. A previous example read like this:
Typical previous QR code to pcgs.cn site
And then this one:
Note different website for this cert!
Different result than expected! I do NOT recommend readers going to the site shown, but if you did, this is what comes up:
Fake “PCGS” site, image
WOW, now we have something apparently new to be concerned about with these.
I did notify my contacts at PCGS for a heads-up as well as post it on their CU Forum:
My contacts at PCGS acknowledged they were now aware and reviewing; a check of the fake site Christmas evening indicated it was now unavailable– a nice Christmas present if it lasts…
I did continue to dig a bit and found the following domain information; seemed ironic the “Registrar” has Alibaba in the name!
The best way to guard against buying a counterfeit coin is to purchase an authentic one from a reputable dealer. Barring that, view Jack Young’s Jack Riley’s and my articles on counterfeit coins published by Proxiblog.
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